


Many are the demon's face

by alchemise



Category: DC's Legends of Tomorrow (TV)
Genre: Demonic Possession, Gen, Trick or Treat: Trick
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-31
Updated: 2018-10-31
Packaged: 2019-08-06 05:31:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,919
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16382330
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alchemise/pseuds/alchemise
Summary: The demon had taken them all. Now Sara was the only one left who could stop it.





	Many are the demon's face

**Author's Note:**

  * For [notsafeforowls](https://archiveofourown.org/users/notsafeforowls/gifts).



Sara had to keep reminding herself that it wasn't Nate anymore. It wasn't Mick either. Or Amaya. In fact, she didn't know if any of the Legends besides her remained.

She crept along the corridor, completely silent as the League had taught her. There was little light to act as a guide—Gideon had stopped communicating some time ago and all life support functions had become unpredictable—but Sara knew the Waverider's corridors better than perhaps any other place she'd lived. This was her home. Or it had been.

Something else lived there now.

"Saaara. Saaaaaara." The voice (not Nate!) sounded taunting. It was always taunting. Thankfully, it was also coming from a distance. Sara's goal was to avoid her teammates who'd been taken over and to find out if anyone else remained.

It had started with Nate, Amaya, and Mick. All three at once. She thought it was because of their proximity to each other; they'd all been sleeping in Nate's room of late. She figured the demon had gotten into the ship there and grabbed them all as convenient targets. That had been a little more than three hours ago, by her best estimate. Three hours of hiding and skulking about the ship. Three hours alone with their voices calling to her in mockery. It felt like a lifetime.

She spotted an open door and slid inside. If she'd traced her way through the dark correctly, this should be Ray's lab.

Suddenly a flashlight lit up the room, blinding her for a moment, as a voice called out, "Sara."

Sara turned smoothly; the blade she'd grabbed from her room swinging into a defensive position.

He smiled nervously, but she couldn't identify it. Relief or triumph? It was still too dark to tell. "Sara. What happened?? I thought I heard Nate yelling, and the door was locked, but I finally got it opened, and now you're here. What happened to Gideon? She's not responding. Is everyone else okay?"

It sounded like Ray, but she just couldn't be certain. This demon was so very good at pretending to be her friends. She'd found Amaya first, shortly after the lights had gone out. The demon had tried to draw her in by pretending to be Amaya suffocating in a locked room with no life support. Sara had fallen for the trick long enough to desperately pry the door open and pull what had once been her friend out to safety. Only then had the demon revealed itself with a cruel smile as it grabbed at Sara's throat. Sara had rendered the body unconscious, still hopeful then that she might be able to save her friends. She'd since lost that hope.

"Sara, are you okay? Where is everyone?" Ray—or the demon—started to move toward her. Every instinct screamed that this was a trap: the demon lulling her into a false sense of security so that it could strike when she least expected it.

She moved quickly, far quicker than Ray should have been able to track. But he reacted anyway. It was definitely the demon then. He shouted, "Stop!" but there was a laugh behind it. Like it was daring her to finish the move she'd begun.

She answered its dare with her blade. But not a fatal cut, only a wound to the leg deep enough that even a demon would be unable to walk on it. She still couldn't bring herself to kill the body of her friend. Even without hope, even though she knew it would be a mercy for him, she still couldn't do it.

The demon's screeching laugh, echoing around the room as Ray's body lay bleeding on the floor, followed her as she exited the room.

That made four of her friends lost now.

She'd found Mick shortly after Amaya. He'd been carrying a crowbar—a clumsy weapon but perhaps the demon saw Mick's heat gun as too quick a death for her. The demon hadn't been easy to subdue this time, but finally she'd left it in a heap on the floor. She couldn't make herself look to see if Mick's body was still breathing.

Now Sara continued on her way. She knew that she'd have to deal with Nate eventually, and was almost out of potential unpossessed allies, so she made her way in the direction of where she'd last heard his taunts. She was having trouble navigating the corridors; they seemed longer than she remembered and sometimes the turns didn't go in the correct direction. _The air!_ It all clicked together. The possessed Legends had messed with life support all over the Waverider. It made sense that the demon would lower the oxygen to disorient and weaken her. This demon wanted her dead, of course, but it wanted to play first. New determination cleared her head. She would defeat it no matter what it took.

"Sara! Come quick! Zari's hurt and I need your help! Hurry!"

It was a simple ploy, an obvious ambush. But she could use that against the demon. Have it think she was playing into its hands and then strike as soon as she was close. She wasn't sure she could both stop the demon and save Nate. The thought of killing him filled her with anguish, but the demon seemed to have chosen him as some kind of main host. If he died, maybe the rest could be saved. And if not, then as much as it would hurt, she'd still make sure the demon's carnage ended on the Waverider.

She was eternally grateful that Ava wasn't there. All of this was already nearly too much to bear, but if the demon had taken Ava as well? Sara feared that any moment a portal would open and Ava would return from the Time Bureau. She forced such thoughts out of her mind in order to finish this.

"Sara! Please!"

The mocking laughter was back underneath Nate's words. The voice was also coming from close by; Sara guessed it was just beyond the doorway ahead of her. She realized where she had been heading, where Nate was: the bridge.

She moved silently to the doorway. There was faint light spilling into the corridor.

Peaking around the corner, she could make out Nate well into the room, with a flashlight in his hand. There was no sign of Zari; the demon had, unsurprisingly, lied.

Sara was tired of its tricks and barbs. Tired of it using her friends. Of forcing her to hurt them. She walked boldly into the room, ready to end this once and for all.

The thing inside Nate gasped theatrically at her entrance, shining the light upon her. His face was now hidden in shadows, but she could still feel the malevolence radiating off of him.

"Sara! Zari is back here. I didn't think I should move her. Come on, she needs you."

Sara didn't say a word, just walked further onto the bridge. She scanned the room without ever turning her head away from the demon. There was no one else there. Whatever this ambush was about, the demon apparently intended it to be one on one. _Good._

When she was within striking distance, she charged.

"Now!" the thing inside Nate called out. But she was prepared, quickly landing a blow to his head that knocked him to the ground, before whirling to face whatever else was coming.

It was Zari. Or rather, had once been her. The demon possessing Zari moved forward out of the shadows. Sara could just make out some design on the ground where it had been standing. She recognized it as some kind of magic, something that had hidden the presence of Zari's body from her. This demon was far more skilled than Sara had anticipated, if it could work such spells.

The demon glided across the floor to Sara, moving Zari's body with inhuman grace. It struck aggressively. Too aggressively. There was a lack of control to its movements, its blows that landed were almost hesitant. As though it were trying not to kill her. Sara pushed down any hope that this was Zari fighting the demon's possession; she couldn't afford mercy this close to the end. She blocked a series of punches and then let the kick that followed connect with her side. Sara grabbed Zari's foot, pinning the demon against her and drawing it close. She reached past Zari's head and wrapped her arm around the demon's throat. It would take the smallest of movements to break its neck. Sara closed her eyes to what she knew she must do.

Then shook her head in confusion. There were words that she couldn't understand coming from across the room. Another sigil on the floor flared brightly before it faded away, spent. Constantine stood within, speaking in a language that she couldn't make out but which assaulted her mind. The demon must have taken him as well.

Sara released Zari's body, leaving it gasping for air on the floor, then clutched her head in pain. The words were searing into her, something so familiar about them that she couldn't quite place. Her knees buckled, and as she fell to the floor, weakness flooded through her body.

Sara felt only despair. She had failed her team. They were all lost.

\----------

There were words again. But these ones she knew.

"She's awake. Sara, can you hear me? I'm sorry we had to lock you up. It's just until Constantine's done with, uh, whatever it is he's doing." It was Nate's voice, and it was obviously him this time. She realized it always had been.

"Yeah mate, almost there. Stop distracting me." Constantine again, speaking a language she didn't understand. Only this time the words didn't burn.

"He says that when Mallus took control of you, he left some kind of scar behind. On your soul. Or it might have even been there from when you were resurrected by the Lazarus Pit. We're not sure when it started. But it left a weakness, a way for another demon to get in."

"Which it obviously did. In case that wasn't clear."

"Yeah, Zari, I'm getting to that. This new demon got ahold of you and made you turn against us. It was smart enough to disable Gideon first and mess with the ship's controls. We'd all split up before we realized that you weren't you and all this was happening again. You, um, you almost killed Mick and Amaya. Gideon's not completely back yet, but we got the infirmary up and running enough to save them. And Ray's okay, mostly. We think you must have been able to fight back enough to keep it from killing any of us. Zari and me are fine too."

"Sort of." The hoarseness in her voice sounded raw and painful.

"Yeah. Sort of. But we've got you back. And this time Constantine is making sure nothing like this can ever happen again. Some kind of healing ritual. I promise you'll never have to go through this again."

 _Again_. She'd attacked her friends—her team—again under a demon's control.

Constantine's words ended, and a soothing wave washed over her. She felt whole in a way she hadn't since before her resurrection and knew that Nate was telling the truth. He reached out and grabbed her hand, with a tired smile but unafraid. Her friends had saved her, in spite of all she'd done. She squeezed his hand and closed her eyes, holding on tight.


End file.
